Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)

I acknowledge the Bill is an effort to transfer functions from the Department for Finance to the Department of public expenditure and reform. I wish to comment on Deputy McGuinness's contribution before he leaves the Chamber. He has been very frank and I agree with much of what he has had to say. When his party was in Government he was a lone voice and it is a pity that he was not listened to when he was speaking out about the reforms that were necessary during the Celtic tiger years because clearly the horse has bolted to a large degree. We now find ourselves with our economy almost €20 billion in debt on public expenditure over the revenue that is coming into the Exchequer. This follows a property boom that was propagated by consistent Government policies over a 15-year period that blew the property boom into a property bubble. Many agreements were made in that period that we are now finding very difficult to sustain. People spoke earlier about social partnership. I have always believed that while social partnership may have been very good in many ways, it also had many negatives. I publicly criticised the role of unions and the lack of oversight of Government and employers in allowing many of those agreements to be implemented into what we now find is an unsustainable economic model.

Disaster has struck in economic terms and we now realise that old ways will simply no longer work and that there is an urgent need for public sector reform. If we do not act now, we will be left with no choice. Whatever choice we have now is diminishing all the time and with the EU-IMF bailout agreement, unless we act urgently and swiftly we will have very little choice over our economy and the future of our country and we will certainly be controlled by outside powers.

I will give some examples of what I regard as unsustainable practice. As a Senator in the Upper House I raised the issue of bonuses to county and city managers and directors of services that were paid by agreement under the Better Local Government programme. These bonuses were paid for the achievement of objectives to which the mayors and the elected representatives of those councils were not privy, which was a disgrace. While I know they are no longer being paid, when I and others questioned them at the time we were stonewalled by the Department and Government. We wanted to know for what those large bonuses were being paid. We were told initially they were being paid for the achievement of objectives in the very local authorities where the elected members were not aware of them, which is not the way to do business. I understand that these bonuses were a trade off for increased pay and that the bonuses would be paid quietly. I believe almost 100% of the bonuses were paid across the country.

Local authorities have already taken a big hit and their front-line services have been reduced considerably. However, we do not see the same impact across the Civil Service. I agree with Deputy McGuinness that there are many senior and middle managers in the Civil Service who now need to bite the bullet and accept that serious and urgent reform is required at those levels.

While I am not being populist in saying this, one should consider the money wasted on e-voting and the PPARS system in the health service. How many heads rolled when that waste of public funds happened? More than €50 million was wasted on e-voting and €100 million on PPARS. Not much notice was taken at that time because there was plenty of money in the Exchequer, but if that happened now there would rightly be a public outcry. We must now have accountability where public funds are wasted. I hope the reforms the Bill will introduce will bring those levels of accountability. Unless we have accountability across the public service for the levels of public spend, we will not see responsible expenditure on behalf of the taxpayer.

I recently discovered that the Waterford branch of the Family Mediation Service, which is supposed to assist vulnerable people who suffer family break-up and operates under the Family Support Agency, was forced to close temporarily for a number of months owing to the embargo on recruitment. When I investigated further I discovered that the Family Mediation Service is paying €1,000 a week for offices to deliver its services, which is unacceptable in this day and age. I do not know how those contracts are entered into. There should be an examination of all rental and contractual agreements of public services and agencies, and how they are expending taxpayers' money. There is no reason those agencies could not operate in community centres or in less costly facilities. That is only one example of which I am aware and I am sure it goes on in public agencies across the country. They certainly need to be tackled.

There is great scope for change, but we need to bring society with us. I agree that it must happen from the top down. The Taoiseach has taken pay cuts as have Deputies and Senators and there may be more in the future. Anybody earning more than €200,000 - there are thousands of them - needs to look seriously at that level of income.

We are not trying to reinvent the wheel. Some semi-State agencies have already achieved great efficiencies. For example, the ESB underwent an enormous transformation in the Celtic tiger years. In the early 1990s it employed more than 14,000 and it now employs only 7,500. It still manages to deliver its service even though there was a much bigger demand on connections and network refurbishment during the Celtic tiger years. However, owing to a transformation agreed between unions and management, voluntary redundancies took place throughout the organisation. It managed to achieve efficiencies and continue to deliver its services and remain profitable. It can be done and it has been done. We must remember that the ESB used to be one of the most militant organisations from a union perspective. We must set the bar at a particular level and look to where achievements have already taken place. That is one area where there have been achievements. If similar models or similar systems of progress are used in the public sector, we can generate new efficiencies.

Another issue that has arisen in my constituency, Waterford, is the closure of the local authority motor taxation office in Tramore, which is the second largest urban area in the county. I have not come out publicly and argued that the motor taxation office should be retained, because I understand that the local authority resources are now greatly diminished and it does not have the staff numbers it used to have. However, I have called for the examination of alternative practices such as access to motor taxation renewal through the post office network, similar to what is available in the UK. There is no reason not to use existing State services and infrastructure such as the post office network to make it easier for people to complete motor taxation renewals or any other renewals. We need to think outside the box. I accept we should use the Internet, but we must realise that not everybody has access to the Internet.

We also need to achieve new efficiencies through shared services. There is no reason for each local authority, VEC and every other State body to have its own payroll centre. We could have regional shared services to deliver payroll services that are similar, if not identical, across local authorities and VECs. We need to introduce shared service-models and new efficiencies. I hope the Bill will give the power and functionality to the new Minister and his Department to achieve those efficiencies in the best interest of the taxpayer because we simply do not have any alternative at this moment in time. If we do not act and implement those reforms, that power will be taken out of our hands.

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